Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Greg Messel’s ‘Fog City Strangler’ is an suspenseful tale
of intrigue and murder that satisfies as a stand-alone novel and
follows Sam Slater, the protagonist of three other mysteries set in
1950s San Francisco.

Private Eye Sam Slater has a lot to worry about. For one, a murderer is stalking San Francisco’s streets, preying upon young blonde women. For another, Slater’s wife Amelia is a stunning blonde who works as a stewardess and also happens to be the face of TWA’s new ad campaign. With her face on billboards all over the city, Slater’s wife Amelia’s new, high profile status is poorly timed. As the “Fog City Strangler” taunts both the cities’ inhabitants and the authorities by sending a scrap of each victim’s clothing with a note to the local newspapers, Slater feels his wife’s high profile could turn her into a prize target.

Slater’s plate seems plenty full when he and Amelia are hired to find a missing woman, the sole

daughter of a wealthy dowager. The woman seems to have vanished into thin air, and the police

investigating the crime are baffled. As Slater and Amelia delve deeper into the mystery they discover that nothing is as it seems; worse, there may be someone lurking in the shadows who will stop at nothing to keep them from learning the truth.

Greg Messel’s Fog City Strangler is a riveting tale that perfectly balances the menace of a serial killer terrorizing a city with the mystery of a lost woman whose family desperately wants to bring her back home. The fourth book in the Sam Slater Mystery Series, Fog City Strangler is preceded by Last of the Seals, Deadly Plunge, and San Francisco Secrets.

Greg Messel

Greg Messel grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, so he is very familiar with the city his protagonist Sam Slater calls home. Messel has also lived in Oregon, Wyoming, and Utah and now resides in Edmonds, Washington on the Puget Sound with his wife, Carol. He has worked as a reporter, columnist and news editor for a daily newspaper in addition to writing fiction. Fog City Strangler is his seventh novel and the fourth in his Sam Slater Mystery Series.